Starting an external editor for media files

You can start an external editor from Dreamweaver to edit most media files. You can also specify the editor you want Dreamweaver to start to edit the file.

This section covers the following topics:

• Starting an external editor from Dreamweaver
• Specifying the editor to start from Dreamweaver

Starting an external editor from Dreamweaver

You can start an external editor from Dreamweaver to edit most media files.

To start an external editor from Dreamweaver:

1. Make sure the media file type is associated to an editor on your system.

   To find out what editor is associated with the file type, select Edit > Preferences in Dreamweaver and select File Types/Editors from the Category list. Click the file’s extension in the Extensions column to view the associated editor or editors in the Editors column. You can change the editor associated to a file type. For more information, see Specifying the editor to start from Dreamweaver.

2. Double-click the media file in the Site panel to open it in the external editor.

   The editor that starts when you double-click the file in the Site panel is called the primary editor. If you double-click an image file, for example, Dreamweaver opens the file in the primary external image editor such as Macromedia Fireworks.

3. If you don’t want to use the primary external editor to edit the file, you can use another editor on your system to edit the file by doing one of the following:
   • In the Site panel, right-click (Windows) or Control-click (Macintosh) the filename and select Open With from the context menu.
   • In Design view, right-click (Windows) or Control-click (Macintosh) the media element within the current page, and select Edit With from the context menu.